batteries, instantly crushing a pair of ogryn servitor loaders, before careening off the edge and
falling to the secondary gantry where Darioq stood.
The front section of the Thunderhawk screeched across the metal latticework towards him, but
he did not move, and it ground to a halt just metres from him, as he had calculated.
Servitors rolled forwards on tracked units, dousing the flames with foam.
“Life signs remain,” said Darioq as he scanned the Thunderhawk, and the servitors retreated
from the wreckage instantly. Heavy combat servitors rolled forwards, weapons raised, scanning for
the enemy.
Red-armoured Chaos Marines emerged from the flames and the servitors fired upon the
survivors. Several of the servitors were ripped apart by bolt fire, but others rolled forwards even as
their fallen comrades were dragged aside by tentacled scavenger servitors for re-manufacture.
Darioq’s four servo arms unfolded like the legs of a gigantic spider, the weapons systems built
into their design humming into activation. Four of the enemy warriors were ripped apart by the fire
from his potent weaponry.
With a roar, a bulky shape emerged from the wreckage, smashing through twisted, burning
metal. Flaming promethium from this warrior’s heavy weapon system engulfed the servitors, turning
their flesh to liquid and detonating their ammunition drums.
Bokkar roared as he smashed his way towards the magos. Plasma pierced the reinforced plasteel
plating of his Terminator armour and heavy bolt-rounds tore through his chest plate.
He unleashed the fury of his heavy flamer and roaring promethium engulfed the magos, hiding
him from view. As the inferno dissipated, Bokkar could see that the flames had washed harmlessly
over a bubble of protective energy surrounding the cursed Mechanicus priest, and he powered
forwards, intent on smashing the magos apart with the force of his chain-fist.
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Bokkar stepped within the boundaries of the tech-priest’s protective field and swung his
chainfist around in a murderous arc. The blow never landed, as one of the servo-arms, hanging over
the magos’s shoulder like the barbed tail of a scorpion, snapped out and grabbed his arm, halting it
mid-swing.
The servo-arm over the other shoulder grabbed his other arm, and he felt his blessed Terminator
armour crack beneath the immense pressure that the whining arms exerted. The servo arms pulled
out to each side sharply and both of Bokkar’s arms were ripped from his body, spraying blood out in
both directions.
He stared down dumbly at his armless torso and was cut in half by the magos’s swinging power
halberd, the cogged blade hacking through his midsection. He fell to the metal lattice floor.
He had failed his Coryphaus, failed his Legion and only damnation awaited him.
The air turned electric as the massive plasma reactors roared to full power in readiness to fire.
Fashioned from the same STC templates from which the grand Ordinatus Mars was constructed, the
giant weapon’s humming increased to painful decibels as it drew the reactors’ energy into its power
drums.
The pitch of the weapon rose beyond that of human hearing and the entire colossal structure of
the Ordinatus began to shudder.
“Dispose of this in the inferno chambers,” said Darioq as he dropped the severed arms of the
traitor Terminator beside the severed torso. The armour had been constructed by Mechanicus Forge
Worlds over ten thousand years ago and he was loathe to destroy such a revered piece of artifice, but
the enemy had long tainted it with its corruption.
He registered the rising pitch of the sonic destructor cannon, and reran the trajectory algorithms.
Satisfied, he waited until the warning beacon began to flash within his inner systems, indicating that
the Ordinatus was ready.
“Targeting locked, magos,” said the mechanised voice of one of his Tech-Priest subordinates.
“Initiate firing sequence,” Darioq intoned.
The palace that had stood upon Tanakreg since it was populated two thousand years previously
shuddered as the focused sonic beams ripped through it, shattering its structure at a molecular level.
Fully three kilometres long from one end of the structure to the other, and rising hundreds of metres
above the low-lying salt plains, the structure began to vibrate as its rocky substructure was rent with
hundreds of cracking faults and weaknesses.
One section of the palace collapsed with a thundering roar that echoed across the battlefield as
the cliff walls beneath it gave way. The fortified battlements atop the sprawling defensive structure
were shattered and the anti-aircraft turrets and batteries ripped from their plascrete housings as more
of the palace collapsed.
The whole mountainous outcrop from which the palace was carved disappeared beneath a rising
cloud, and the thunder of its collapse made the earth beneath the feet of the battling armies shudder.
The potent guns of the palace were silenced as the entire structure smashed to the ground.
A subterranean explosion rocked the earth and Darioq’s delicate sensors picked up the faint hint
of radiation as the plasma reactor buried deep beneath the ground was breached. A secondary
subterranean explosion roared as the palace settled, and rock and debris was hurled hundreds of
metres into the air.
A shockwave rippled out from the detonating plasma reactor, hurling tanks and men into the air
as it whipped across the land before its power was spent.
The enemy’s giant tower shook, dried mortar cracking and slipping from between its massive
stone bricks, and a shudder ran up its length. Yet, denying the laws of the physical universe, it
remained standing.
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“What in the Emperor’s holy name was that?” asked Havorn as the Chimera ground to a halt. He
scrambled out of the command tank, his blinking advisors and adjutant at his side, and the everpresent
bulk of his ogryn bodyguard behind him.
Putting his magnoculars to his eyes, he saw the rising dust cloud where a moment before the
towering presence of the palace had been located.
“Emperor be praised,” he exclaimed.
He laughed out loud in surprise and astonishment.
“When’s our second wave of drop-troopers inbound?”
“Now sir, they should be falling as we speak,” answered his comms officer, who had been
staring blankly at his useless machines since his vox communication had been silenced.
“And now they are safe from the wretched fire from those air turrets,” exclaimed Havorn’s
young adjutant. “This is a good day for the Imperium indeed! Victory is assured!”
“Victory is never assured,” said Havorn as his eyes fell on the red-armoured Chaos Marines
fighting their way free of the tech-guard cohorts. His augmented, ogryn bodyguard growled
menacingly and took a step in front of the brigadier-general.
“Quick, sir!” said his adjutant, urgently.
“We have not the time,” said Havorn flatly, seeing the enemy carve a bloody exit from the mass
of bodies and begin hurtling across the salt plain towards them. He pulled his gold-rimmed plasma
pistol from his holster.
His entourage raised their weapons and sprayed the approaching warriors with gunfire. The
ogryn roared as it planted its heavy feet and empty shells streamed from its ripper gun as it fired the
weapon wildly. The Chimera behind them rotated its turret and multi-laser fire peppered the traitors,
cutting several of them down. Only six Chaos Marines reached the brigadier-general’s command
group, but it was enough.
The first Chaos Marine ducked under the ogryn’s heavy swinging arm and leapt forwards,
smashing its tall, spiked icon into the head of Havorn’s adjutant, pulverising his skull.
A burst of fire tore apart another of Havorn’s men and the brigadier-general fired his plasma
pistol in response, knocking back a chainsword wielding foe as the shot took him in the shoulder.
He fired again quickly and despatched the traitor, streaming plasma engulfing his helmet.
This was the end, he thought. An ignominious end to his thirty-seven years within the Imperial
Guard, hacked apart by brutal warriors behind his battle lines.
“Damn you, you traitorous whoresons!” he muttered and fired his pistol twice in quick
succession, felling another of the two and half metre behemoths.
Two more of his entourage were hacked down and he backed further away.
He saw the loyal ogryn fall to the ground with a bestial roar. He wasn’t a sentimental man by
any stretch, but he felt pain as his faithful bodyguard fell to the ground, coughing blood from his
lungs.
Havorn fired his pistol again and again, and felt the rising pain beneath his hand as the pistol
overheated, venting super-heated air. With a snarl, he hurled it to the ground and drew his long
bladed combat knife. It had been more than twenty years since it had tasted blood, back in the days
when he was a captain of the storm troopers.
Only two of the enemy remained standing and they stalked towards him, wordlessly stepping
away from each other to take him from both sides.
Havorn kept his eyes on the foe so as not to attract their attention to the massive form of the
ogryn picking itself up behind them, blood running from the wounds on its arms and chest, and
spilling from its mouth.
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With a roar, the ogryn picked up one of the traitors, one massive hand upon the enemy’s
backpack and the other between his legs. It lifted the Chaos Marine high into the air and slammed it
head first into the ground, cracking its neck.
The second traitor turned with a snarl and swung its icon two handed into the ogryn’s legs,
driving it to its knees. Releasing his grip on the haft of the hateful symbol of Chaos, the Chaos
Marine leapt at the ogryn, its long talons extended for the killing blow.
Havorn cried out and surged forwards, but he was too slow and he saw the bodyguard fall, its
throat ripped completely out, blood spurting from the fatal wound.
He drove his combat knife through a crack in the traitor’s ceramite back plate, the blade sinking
deep. Blood spurted from the wound, burning through Havorn’s leather glove, and the enemy spun,
his fist smashing into the brigadier-general’s cheek, shattering the bone.
Pain exploded in his head and he fell back from the force of the blow. He saw the ogryn’s large,
mournful eyes as it tried desperately to aid its master before the Chaos Marine reached down and
broke its neck with a brutal twist.
“Traitorous hellspawn,” spat Havorn.
“Hellspawn yes. Traitor, no,” replied the hateful, possessed traitor, his fang-filled maw forming
the Low Gothic words with difficulty. The fangs retracted and the warrior shook his head, his
daemonic visage melting away to leave a cold, pale handsome face.
“The Word Bearers Legion, blessed of Lorgar, are no traitors, wretched fool,” growled the
warrior as he stalked towards Havorn.
“You and your wretched kin turned your back on the glorious Emperor and all of humanity to
embrace damnation,” said Havorn, crawling back towards his fallen adjutant and the dead man’s
laspistol.
“The Emperor turned his back on us!” raged the traitor. “Only through the unified worship of
true divinities can mankind be saved. Your False Emperor is nothing more than a rotting corpse
perched atop a golden high-chair, a puppet for bureaucrats and taxmen. And you pathetic humans
pray to him? You are the lowest of scum, ignorant and embracing that ignorance.”
Havorn’s hand slid behind him and closed on the grip of the laspistol.
“Your soul will be damned when you leave this world, while I will go to the blessed Emperor’s
side in glory and light,” said Havorn, trying to keep the bastard distracted.
“I say my soul is already damned in this world, and that there will be nothing but hell waiting for
you,” said the traitor.
“I’ll see you there,” said Havorn and he swung the laspistol up, firing it straight into the face of
the Chaos Marine. The traitor fell backwards with a cry of anger and pain, and lay still.
Havorn pushed himself to his feet, pain throbbing from his shattered cheek-bone, and he began
to stagger away.
A clawed hand wrapped around his neck from behind, and he was lifted into the air and turned
to face the traitor. The wound on the traitor’s forehead was closing as he watched, the bone knitting
together and flesh re-forming over the bullet hole, leaving not a scratch upon the traitor’s darkly
handsome face.
“Yes, I will see you in hell, human,” said Burias-Drak’shal as he plunged his clawed hand through
the brigadier-general’s chest. With one decisive wrench, he pulled the Elysian commander’s stillbeating
heart from the old man’s broken ribcage and watched as the life left his eyes. He held the
beating heart to his mouth, tasting the sweet, warm blood, and threw the lifeless corpse dismissively
to the ground.
The Chimera slammed into Burias-Drak’shal with shocking force, sending him flying out in
front of the armoured personnel carrier. As he tried to rise to his feet it slammed into him again, and
he disappeared beneath its whirling tracks, sixty tonnes of Imperial tank rolling over him.
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A ripple of movement spread out from the base of the Gehemehnet, the blackened earth around the
tower shimmering and wavering. Electricity coalesced down the tower and surged across the surface
of the ground before dissipating. Glowing light began to spill from the mortar between the massive
stone blocks, which began to bulge and warp like molten rubber. A daemonic, fanged face appeared
within the stone, pushing outwards, straining to break into the mortal realm.
“Not just yet, precious,” said Jarulek, caressing the daemonic manifestation. Claws appeared in
the stone, reaching out towards the Dark Apostle and he chuckled. He spoke a word in the language
of the daemon and the creature recoiled, its face a mask of childish, shamefaced repentance.
“Not just yet,” he repeated and the daemon retreated back within the Gehemehnet.
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CHAPTER TWENTY
For a day and night the Chaos Marines held the Imperials at bay, though they were driven slowly
back, unable to contain the sheer numbers of the foe advancing against them. There were moments
of brief respite in the action, as the Elysians gathered themselves for another push forwards, but
always there were skirmishes and minor actions. The Skitarii tech-guard cohorts advanced tirelessly.
Without the threat of the potent air defences that had been housed within the palace, the heavens
